Post-Location
Clearly one of the themes of the 21st century is the changing meaning of location. Whether you call it the flattening of the globe or something else, the point that we’re living in a more global society than ever before can’t really be ignored. As someone who makes stuff on the internet this comes up quite often. Since launching brand tags, for instance, almost exactly half my traffic has come from the US and the other half has come from everywhere else, despite the site is clearly for a US audience (the brands are mostly US-centric). And I’m not alone on this one, according to this iMedia article:
Research from comScore indicates that 63 percent of the visitors to Ticketmaster come from outside of the United States, as do 64 percent of the visitors to New York Times Digital, 68 percent of the visitors to Disney Online and Expedia. More than 80 percent of the visitors to CNET Networks and Apple Computer, Inc. come from outside of the United States as well.
But it’s not actually marketing I’m interested in talking about at the moment (imagine that!). Rather, I want to talk about a few interesting quotes I’ve run across recently that I think fit together.
First off, it’s the one that inspired this entry. It comes from a 2005 Rolling Stone article about the Rendon Group titled “The Man Who Sold the War” (thanks for the tip Colin). The article is amazing, and I seriously suggest reading it. It’s all about how propaganda shapes thinking and world events (specifically the war in Iraq). But it’s this quote that really jumped out at me:
By law, the Bush administration is expressly prohibited from disseminating government propaganda at home. But in an age of global communications, there is nothing to stop it from planting a phony pro-war story overseas — knowing with certainty that it will reach American citizens almost instantly.
“An age of global communications” is a nice way to think about it. There’s no delay in information anymore. Yesterday I was talking to a colleague about the idea of asymmetrical information (the economic idea that markets behave inefficiently when one side has different information than another) and the fact that it’s coming closer to being extinct. The car industry is a great place to look at this: Who walks into a showroom anymore without complete knowledge of the pricing of the car and its components (well, probably lots of people, but still). Seriously, though, this is a big deal and a big change, when everyone knows the same stuff all of a sudden markets start behaving in new ways (or actually, they start behaving in “normal” ways which just so happen to be new to us). When you play this out on a global stage what you get is a world where information is digested almost instantly no matter where it occurs. Which, of course, leads us to situations like the one the Olympics and NBC are facing right now.
By choosing to delay the opening ceremonies, NBC set itself up for a fight against technology and communication. As the New York Times article explains, “NBC’s decision to delay broadcasting the opening ceremonies by 12 hours sent people across the country to their computers to poke holes in NBC’s technological wall — by finding newsfeeds on foreign broadcasters’ Web sites and by watching clips of the ceremonies on YouTube and other sites.” Global communications doesn’t do delays, it just doesn’t make any sense. Which leaves a company like NBC trying to hold onto a relic: The control of a once-local communications medium.
But again, nothing I’ve said is particularly new. These are all things that have been bubbling for up for at least the last five years and probably even longer. What I think is interesting is where it all goes. A few months ago Shelly Palmer wrote a really interesting article about Antigua’s copyright threat to the US (in short Antigua threatened and actually distributed copyrighted US materials in retaliation to the US shutting down offshore internet betting). In the article Palmer quotes Phillip Rosedale, CEO of Second Life, saying, “in a few years telling someone you’re from China will have about as much meaning as telling them your astrological sign.” Palmer goes on to explain that “While even Philip agreed that that might be hyperbole, he was pretty sure that where you live in the physical world is starting to have less meaning with respect to your ability to function online.”
So what does a post-nationality world look like? Not surprisingly I don’t really have any idea. I mean, I think we’re seeing lots of paralells in other parts of life that point in the same direction. The move from demographics to psychographics as a way to define groups seems to be a nice analog for the situation. Simply put, we are moving to a time where we need different criteria to define our universe. Play that out further and you get questions like: What happens when they find a way to help people live forever? (Or until they get bored of it at least.)
Essentially I think much of it boils down to something Faris wrote about the other day: Post-scarcity economics. Much of this discussion revolves around abundant availability (in this case specifically around content and communication) and more specifically, around the business world trying to find some semblance of balance as the ground shifts beneath them.
Pause.
Basically I don’t know where else to go with this. So I’m stopping. Going to keep reading and see what I come up with, but figured I’d leave it open to everyone else as well. In my search for a conclusion I landed on the Wikipedia page for “post scarcity”, which led me searching for a guy named Anthony Giddens and eventually to an excellent lecture he gave on globalization which included this:
Instantaneous electronic communication isn’t just a way in which news or information is conveyed more quickly. Its existence alters the very texture of our lives, rich and poor alike. When the image of Nelson Mandela maybe is more familiar to us than the face of our next door neighbour, something has changed in the nature of our everyday experience.
So I’ll leave you all with that. Thoughts, as always, are greatly appreciated. Maybe someone else can tell me what I’m talking about at this point, since I seem to have forgotten. Good night.
Hi, I'm 
There’s an interesting flip side I just read to this that explains the international Chinese students who despite exposure to and benefiting from Western education were deeply patriotic/nationalistic on foreign soil in the recent torch relay for the Olympic Games. One of the reasons given for this is that in an age of ubiquitous communication and information its easier for them to remain in contact with their cultural homeland and less likely to assimilate in their adopted country.
This doesn’t mean that everything you’ve written doesn’t apply. It’s just another context I happen to have read shortly before your post.
It’s funny – I’ve been seeing these sorts of proclamations about the death of location for twenty years now, and, if anything, I think location is becoming more important. Location is not just a physical location – a location situates you in a local culture and with a set of people. The “Big Sort” is happening where we all find the people and culture with which we are most comfortable, as that makes us more productive. No amount of online back-and-forth via blogs and email is as edifying as a single hour-long conversation, as you and I have demonstrated several times. So I think being co-located with one’s collaborators and competitors has a huge benefit still.
That being said, artificial restrictions on information, like trying to do time delays, is crazy. As you say, that’s trying to hold onto a relic, something Clay Shirky covers nicely in Here Comes Everybody.
interesting thoughts! I’ve always been a big supporter of the saying…think globally & act locally! As time has elapsed & my web based life grown it’s morphed a bit. Think & Act now is my mantra!
It’s about action not location. Even though I feel like the world has grown smaller, i also feel a stronger sense of pride than ever b4 about where I come from. Maybe it’s because I have a better understand of where I come from these days. peace
love this mate – although to Eric’s point – the web allowed non-geo communities of interest to develop – but the geoweb allows you build location back into it. or something.
I’m not sure the erosion of information asymmetry is a good thing in all cases:
http://farisyakob.typepad.com/blog/2008/03/good-humour.html
O and you should really read Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom – email me your address and I’ll send you it.
Very interesting post Noah. Thank you, as always.
Faris, I happen to disagree that there are situations where asymmetrical information can be bad. In your blog post the crux of the issue which I agree with is that closer regulation of the claims drug companies can make is long over-due… but I completely dismiss the idea that it’s bad for patients to research their illness & be prepared to discuss treatment options (or the diagnosis) with their doctor – from an educated position. I’ve heard many debates on this issue, and time after time I end up with the same conclusion – usually convinced by open-minded doctors. Those same doctors are ones who embrace an educated client base, who don’t have a God complex, and who change the way they engage with their patients by gauging their patient’s capacity to handle information properly, and support / encourage different levels of research as appropriate.
* * *
Noah, for your bigger question of post-nationality – while location will be less of a barrier to dissemination of information and goods – physical location will always have an impact on culture, both online and off. And let’s not forget the role of history…
Let’s take a little thing like how sites are designed in two English-speaking countries. Apparently – per my brother – in the UK, there’s a tendency to avoid focusing on the cost of an item when making a sale – it’s a cultural thing, both conversationally, and in print / tv. Whereas in the US, there’s a very in-your-face discussion of the cost.
I found an example of this online with two similar businesses: on SofaCinema it takes a little effort to find out the cost; at Netflix it’s right there on almost every page.
I think we’re going to see more and more regional website development to mimic what’s going on in different locations/cultures – as access to technology spreads. While we’ll gain efficiency in the back-end architecture, front-end will continue to evolve. I’d point to Wikipedia, and note how many languages are served on that site. One could argue that it’s redundant and wasteful to have so many entries essentially duplicated in different languages – why can’t everyone just learn English, or Esperanto… ;-)
But the beauty happens to exist (IMHO) in the variety that life comes in. I’m excited to see how different cultures adapt the Internet for their needs and for their cultures.
One last example: Being Israeli, I am regularly blown away by the number of websites and the amount of content that exists for Israeli consumption (sites which are only in Hebrew, focusing solely on current events in Israel – nothing religious, nothing historical). I’m amazed because Israel is a country of 6 million people (with 1.89 mil. Internet users – a/o ’06), with a few million living abroad. It’s a pretty small audience, and it’s not growing that fast. Furthermore, a majority of Israelis are bilingual, and could just as easily consume English-language content online. If you compared the amount of original Israeli film/television content available to original Israeli web content – web would blow it away… What does this say about where the web is going?
As developing nations get their hands on technology – I strongly believe the trend will continue towards localization. Although I’ll also point out that traffic to websites for local news organizations here in the US is remarkably high. People really do care about what’s going on in their local communities, and when they come to the web, they still want to hear what’s going on in their own town. So it’s not just a national thing – it’s a domestic thing too.
OK, I’ll stop now ;-)
@Charles & @Eric: Yeah, it’s quite interesting. I was battling with that a little as I wrote this. I think you can make an argument for either side: Location is both more important and less important than ever. Might have to write a whole other entry on that.
@Faris: Hook it up, I want to read it.
On a rational level, I can’t think of a thing you wrote that I disagree with- everything from defining ourselves as part of a psychographical group (as opposed to an ethnic, gender or national one) to the whole premise of The Real Digital Revolution, which is that we’re in a post-advertising world where we walk into car showrooms with all the information we need to make a decision– to the whole notion that the interwebs have created an international culture and made geographical location irrelevant to everyone but BrightKite users.
But the real world doesn’t seem even remotely in step with us.
Russians are invading Georgia over some godforsaken plot of land with a couple of thousand people. National rivalries, like those on display at the Olympics, still matter, even if the athletes aren’t always exactly natives.
Will that change? To me, that’s the bigger question. If the breaking down of the importance of physical location will lessen the voracity of nationalism (which is, in and of itself, arguably a by-product of the Industrial Revolution) and put an end to land-and-identity based conflicts.
Thought provoking as usual. Sorry for the delayed posting.
Quick follow-up: check out this op-ed from NYT’s Paul Krugman on the whole globalism vs nationalism in light of the Russian invasion of Georgia: http://is.gd/1vnZ
Noah, what you’re talking about here is, interestingly, one of the basic arguments in Funky Business, an fun book on the New economy. the two authors argue that in an age where resources can be equally tapped by producers all over the globe – through info from the www – the only actual differentiator for brands and businesses will be the brains of the people working for them :-)